I for instance am aware very often that my anxiety comes from illogical fear but that doesn't make my anxiety go away. I found the core concept intriguing enough to want to try to work this triangle myself and with others. Jacobs Hendel led these patients and others toward lives newly capable of joy and fulfillment through an empathic and effective therapeutic approach that draws on the latest science about the healing power of our emotions. I particularly liked the experiment that made me imagine a safe space, somewhere I can go to when things get stressful. She distills this knowledge into a multitude of useful tools and skills to better understand, acknowledge and use our emotions to enhance our lives.

Hendel teaches us that core emotions like joy, anger, sadness, fear, and excitement, are automatic and universal physical experiences; this is firmly grounded in neuroscience.Focus on sensations of anxiety: Tune in to the physical sensations of your anxiety, like a quickly beating heart or butterflies in your stomach. This is possible but requires working the Change Triangle to arrive in the openhearted state as often as possible and tolerating the discomfort that change always brings. Hilary's book is such a great explanation of how to deal with your emotions in healthy ways and in doing so, we can become more integrated, authentic and whole.

I also don't 100% agree with the premise of the book, that just becoming aware of how you feel will make your depression or anxiety or whatever go away. Ask yourself if you are feeling sad, fearful, angry, disgusted, joyful, excited, and/or sexually excited. I do have some misgivings about the way the core message elides material and structural considerations (classism, racism, sexism, etc.She introduces us to The Change Triangle, a conceptual tool, a map, to understand our emotions and discover what we are doing with them that limit our awareness and growth.